


Edge Of Seventeen

by carnivalinsidemyhead



Category: Take That
Genre: Angst, M/M, Self-Discovery, Soulmates, letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:53:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26752408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carnivalinsidemyhead/pseuds/carnivalinsidemyhead
Summary: They were no more than babies when it all began.
Relationships: Mark Owen/Robbie Williams
Kudos: 5





	Edge Of Seventeen

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the lyrics of Edge Of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks

They were no more than babies when it all began. Just 15 and 17 when the band formed. A pair of babies, both with the age old desire to please, both keen to appear grown up, pushing their hovering mothers aside with red faced embarrassment to go into the meeting alone; their eyes meeting in an understanding of “mums. right?” 

There was a sadness in Robbie even then, lurking underneath his cockiness, like there was something within him that was permanently broken-hearted. Mark, who was tuned into him better than anyone- better than he was tuned into himself, sometimes wondered if Robbie had ever been truly happy.

At least, he used to be tuned into him. Back when they were so intertwined they finished each other’s sentences and knew each other’s thoughts without speaking, with just a touch or a look. Mark sometimes would wake up tangled in Robbie’s arms and feel like his very blood ran through his veins and his blood ran through Robbie’s- that they were one and the same person. 

But something had changed. So many things had changed. Robbie seemed so lost and angry. And he was distant. For the first time in five years, Mark realized he couldn’t really read Robbie anymore. 

For the first time in five years, he didn’t feel like he was part of Robbie’s being. He was as physically close to him as ever. But it felt different. It felt wrong suddenly. Like being so near him made him unable to hear him. 

If he couldn’t see Robbie as separate from himself, could he truly see him? See the person he really was and not just his partner in crime?

Robbie was drifting away from Mark and everything in him wanted to pull him back to him. But there was something else in him, a voice telling him he needed to let him go.

That it was the only way Robbie would learn who he was.

That it was the only way he would. 

So that by the time that moment came that Robbie walked out the door for good- that moment that shook all of them to their cores and haunted them for years, he let it happen.

He didn’t want it to happen. It broke his heart that it had to happen. But he knew that it did. 

And then the band split and they said they’d keep in touch but they don’t and before you knew it, there was no one left standing, just the echoes of music that will always be hauntingly familiar to them no matter how they try to escape their past.

Then a few years later, lost and discouraged and alone, he listens to Robbie singing with the words of a poet and the voice from a choir, doing what he’s tried so very hard to do for himself, and it’s like nothing else matters but reaching out to him once more so they can begin again together like they once were when they were on the edge of seventeen.


End file.
